Patrick Pouyanné, the boss of TotalEnergies is due to meet investors in New York on Wednesday October 2. Enough to reignite the controversy surrounding the listing of the multinational on the American stock exchange. The file is above all very technical. In fact, TotalEnergies is already listed in the United States, but the group would like American individuals to be able to enter its capital more easily. In New York, as a foreign issuer, the group is subject to specific stock market regulations: it issues certificates of deposit. This process resembles shares, but it is a quotation reserved more for professionals, and therefore much less attractive. For this reason, the board of directors of TotalEnergies asked Patrick Pouyanné a few months ago to work on the subject. On Wednesday, when he meets his investors, the CEO plans to give them an update
This maneuver is nevertheless perceived as a disengagement from France. The fact that TotalEnergies is seeking to better promote itself in the United States is a sign. The group wants to capture more money across the Atlantic, knowing that American investors already represent 47% of its shareholders, while the share of European investors is weakening from year to year.
**To finance its activities, such as this ten billion dollar investment contract to exploit oil and gas in Suriname, the firm needs money. She is going to look for him in the United States. It’s a business logic, without feeling, explains Patrick Pouyanné.
A form of warning
The group assures that it will not leave France and that it will not make the United States its main listing. That she will stay in Paris. That the headquarters will remain in France. However, it is difficult not to see this as a form of warning, especially at a time when the Barnier government is preparing to ask the CAC 40 giants to make an effort. The groups in the Energy sector are the first to be targeted. Faced with the threat of a temporary and exceptional contribution on large companies, is there not a way for Patrick Pouyanné to remind the political class that he does most of his activity and its turnover elsewhere. In the budgetary context, the issue quickly took a political turn.
